We recall thy friendly voice,

Bring to mind thy love of flowers;
Lilies white that were thy choice,
Rise to deck the garden bowers:

Death's winter o'er,

Thou livest yet,
Margaret !

Thine the gain and ours the loss,
Thine the glory, ours the tears;
We still bend beneath the cross
Of our painful, weary years:

Thou the loved

Of old, hast met,
Margaret.

Thou hast changed our night for day,

Left our gloom for endless, joy;
Where all tears are wiped away,

Where no death shall e'er destroy :

We will never

Thee forget,

Margaret !

LIFE WEARS AWAY.

Life wears away!

Like the rosy flush on the morning cloud,

Like the flower's perfume by the strong wind bowed, Like the sunbeam's smile, like the night's dark shroud,

Life wears away.

Life wears away

Whether we do the good we may,

!

Whether we spend it in work or play,
Freeze in December, or dance in May,

Life wears away.

Life wears away!

With its pleasures and pains, its hopes and fears,
Its losses and gains, its smiles and tears;

We may beckon to Time, but he will not stay,-
Life wears away.

Life wears away!

With its restless nights and toilsome morns,
Love crowns us with joy, or hate with thorns;
The heart beats on with its loves and scorns;
Life wears away.

Life wears away!

But heed it not, so we look beyond

As a child for his home, with yearnings fond;
We may laugh at Time that he will not stay,
And smile in peace as life wears away.

OUR LIFE.

O Life of ours! that with untiring feet

Paces beside us through the weary years,

Through diff'ring scenes, with different souls to meet, To echo laughter and to mingle tears.

The busy Day, a beggar at our doors,

Asks us a kind word or a look to give; Or peddler-like importunate implores

The Soul something to take whereby to live.

The viewless Hours scarcely our thoughts baptize,
To consecrate them to some nobler aim,
When swift as light each proffered moment flies-
Ours to improve no more, no more to claim.

What art thou, Life? so full of hopes and fears,
So full of promises not once fulfilled;
Whose only flowers, watered by Sorrow's tears,
Spring from the fields our hands with pain have tilled.

What art thou, Life? the preface of a Book

Unwritten yet, by the great Mind conceived!

Upon whose page no mortal eye may look,
Whose glory's scarce by mortal mind believed.

WEARINESS.

"If goodness lead him not, yet weariness
May toss him to my breast. "

The child may roam in search of flowers,
May seek the butterfly to catch,

. May linger in green wild-wood bowers
The ripened fruit or nut to snatch;

Yet parent be thou anxious not

Lest he too far from thee may roam; At sundown he will leave the spot,

For Weariness will bring him home.

Mortals may seek for Wealth or Fame,
Pleasure may draw their steps aside;
But if God doth not ever claim

Their ev'ry thought, and with them bide, Be anxious not, O Pilgrim gray,

That they from earth and sin be riven; Earth's pleasures are without a stay, And Weariness will lead to Heaven.

THE UNBIDDEN GUEST.

Coming with his quiet footfall,

When the plashing rains of spring Have awakened field and meadow To a fairer blossoming;

Lighter than the grape-vine's shadow
Treads he now the cottage floor,

And with him Life's pleasant sunshine
Passes through the open door :

Still the busy bees are humming,
Still her wheel the matron plies;
But the daylight beams no longer
From the infant's closed eyes.

Coming, noiseless as the snow-flake,
When the winter winds wail loud,
And unseen fingers haste to weave
The traveller's white shroud;

Where the light grows red in struggling
Through the crimson drapery ;
Where the Soul is sorely wrestling
To put off mortality!

Where all human skill stands baffled,-
And the heart but looks on high ;—
Unseen waiting by the pillow,

The Unbidden Guest is nigh.

Where the "sound of revelry "

Bursts upon Night's startled ear, With boist'rous laugh and wine-born song, The Unbidden Guest is near !

'Mid the city's noise and uproar
Slowly moves the crowd along;
Swift the Unbidden Guest is walking
In and out among the throng;

Now he stops, as if to linger,
Where the shades of sickness lie,
But Pass over on the portal
Meets his never closing eye.

When the crimson leaves are falling

Like the drops of Nature's blood,